Saturday, November 30, 2013

Today is Nov. 30, the last day of NaNoDrawMo. For those not
yet familiar with it, the goal of NaNoDrawMo (patterned after National Novel
Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo) participants is to make 50 drawings during the 30
days of November. How did I do? I hit 50 sketches on Nov. 19, and today I made
my 72nd sketch (this very leafless tree at Green Lake). I’m going to
call it good!

Visiting the NaNoDrawMo Flickr group to post my daily sketches introduced me to the work of some people
that I would otherwise not have seen. I tend to spend most of my online time
looking at urban sketches, so it broadened my view to see more life drawings, comics
and “object portraits” (as Kate calls them) than I usually do. NaNoDrawMo “forced” me to sketch subject matter that
I had previously deemed boring– an activity that I discovered I enjoy. It also “forced” me to try to sketch every day, which has been a goal
for me all along. There were still seven days in November that I didn’t sketch
at all; it’s a goal, but I don’t beat myself up and quit if I don’t make it. After
all, the most important thing about NaNoDrawMo is not the 30 days in November;
it’s to keep going, drawing day after day, long after Nov. 30.

But I already knew that.

(Technical note: Now that most of the deciduous trees around here are leafless, I'm looking forward to sketching their fully visible shapes. I particularly like using my Sailor fountain pen to render bare trees. Although I have yet to master it, I like the way the pen makes thick and thin lines in a single stroke the way tree limbs taper.)

Friday, November 29, 2013

I haven’t been out on Black Friday to shop in years,
possibly decades, but I’ve found that it can be fun to be out in the
hustle-bustle if I’m doing something other than shopping. This afternoon I went
to Northgate Mall with a sole purpose: to sketch Santa. I had so much fun
sketching Santa last year that I captured him twice – first at Northgate and then at Pacific Place. But surely I see more than two Santas in any given
season; I’ve challenged myself to top that record this year.

Today might be the busiest day of the year for retailers,
but Santa looked bored. I passed by him twice without any clients. On my third
pass, a reluctant little girl was on his lap, refusing to smile, so I grabbed
my opportunity. As has happened each time I’ve sketched Santa, his client was
long gone before I finished sketching her, and then Santa went on a
break.

11/29/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sailor pen, Canson XL

On my way out of the mall, a young busker named Sarah
Emerson was raising money for a trip to Ghana next summer to work in an
orphanage. It felt good to know that the only money I spent at the mall today
was the dollar I put in her bowl.

For the last in my series of alphabetical still lifes, I used a piece of food that didn’t fit
into the casserole pan for last night’s feast and a candle saved from Greg’s
birthday party a couple years ago.

Although I have never been much of still life enthusiast, the
series I just completed taught me several things:

I discovered that I enjoy still lifes after all! Working in
a series with rules made it much easier for me to decide what to sketch, which
has always been one of my difficulties in following the Danny Gregory Everyday Matters
principle of drawing “anything.” I’ll keep this in mind as I do more still
lifes in the future: Make rules first to help narrow the field of sketching
subjects, and work in series to make selection even easier.

Sketching still lifes gave me better practice in watercolor
painting than most urban sketches do. On location, I always finish the sketch
onsite, and if I have any constraints – bad weather, jostling crowds, distractions,
insufficient time – I opt to paint haphazardly or not at all rather than save
the painting for more ideal conditions (once I leave the location, the impetus
to finish disappears). I learned more about watercolor painting these past few
weeks, and I’ll apply what I’ve learned when I sketch in less-than-optimal field
conditions.

About halfway through my alphabetical still life series, which began with an idea I had for X, it
occurred to me that X technically would not be a still life; it would be a
drawing based on an image. But since I made the rules for my series, I can also
bend them.

I’ve had an issue with my left rotator cuff for a while now,
and a couple months ago I had an X-ray taken. Since I’d never had one before, I
didn’t know what to expect, and I was delighted when the technician burned the
image to a CD and handed it to me at the end of my appointment. I knew that
someday I’d have a use for it.

The interesting challenge was deciding how to sketch a white,
semi-opaque image on a dark background. When I saw David Hingtgen’s recent sketches in a black Moleskine sketchbook
using a white Uniball Signo gel pen (my favorite white opaque pen) and gouache,
I thought, “Bingo!” The Uniball Signo worked well, but the gouache turned out
to be more difficult to use than I had imagined. I kept putting layer after
layer on dark gray paper, but instead of staying opaque as it looks when it’s
wet, it became transparent when it dried. I finally had to go over the areas that
I wanted to be the most opaque with a white Conte crayon. I’ve sketched plenty of skeletons at the Burke Museum; who knew that
sketching an X-ray would be so challenging? (With luck, I won’t have many more,
at least from my own body, to practice on.)

Since I surpassed my NaNoDrawMo goal a while ago (I was up to 65 sketches on Wednesday), I guess I don’t
have to finish my series of alphabetical still lifes, but I’m having so much
fun with it that I’m going to finish anyway.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

I’ve heard it said that the things most familiar to us are
often the most difficult to draw accurately. The brain “knows” too much about
these familiar things, preventing the eye from seeing them as they really are.
Although I replace as much cooking time as possible with sketching time (admit
it – you do, too!), so I probably spend less time cooking than most people, I’d
have to say that this room in my home is quite familiar to me, and I found it
extremely challenging to sketch.

When I saw that this week’s Urban Sketchers Flickr group theme was “Kitchens,” I groaned and
put it off for a few days. Other than fruits and vegetables I take from the
counter for still lifes, nothing in my kitchen inspires me to sketch it. Even
over breakfast today, I grumbled to Greg that the kitchen is full of hard, straight
lines, difficult perspective challenges and mostly nonexistent or uninteresting
shadows. “All the more reason to sketch it,” he replied. Tomorrow the kitchen
will be a huge mess of cooking activity, so if I was going to do something for
the theme, it would have to be today. Grumble.

The one thing our kitchen has going for it is that our
stairway runs along one wall of it, so when I stand in the stairway, I have an
unusually high vantage point that makes it slightly more interesting to sketch.

It took me well over an hour to sketch this – way longer
than I usually take for any one sketch. As familiar as the kitchen is to me,
before this morning, I’m not sure I could have told you that the burners over
our gas range have eight spider-like “legs” on them. (Sketching any object
makes me learn something about it.)

As I sat on the comfy, carpeted stairs to paint this, the
refrigerator full of food for tomorrow’s feast, the furnace circulating warm
air all around me, I realized that if the only thing I have to grumble about is
the subject of a sketch, I am, indeed, very fortunate, and I’m grateful for
everything I have.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

I had exactly a half-hour before I had to leave for an
appointment. Did I have enough time for a still life? Not really, but I had all
the objects ready to go, so I decided to treat it the same way I often treat urban
sketches – draw and paint to the level of detail that fits the amount of time
available. (Tip: Having the space heater on full blast dries paint quickly.)
Twenty-eight minutes later, I was done: Still life S T U in my alphabetical
series.

(The U stumped me for a while. I could have used an umbrella,
but I wanted something that would fit on the same scale as the other two
objects. Of course, “Urban Sketchers” was the first thing that came to mind,
but how to put that into a still life. . . ? A quick look around my studio was
all it took.)

Monday, November 25, 2013

Merlin is a field golden retriever. I met him this afternoon
at the 72nd Street Café
near Green Lake, where I stopped for coffee on my way to yoga class. Quietly lying
at his guy’s feet, he would occasionally perk up when offered a bite of a sandwich,
then go right back to the same position, obliging my sketch very nicely.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Swanson’s Nursery
is popular among gardeners year-round, but during the holidays, the visiting
reindeer and camel make it an extra-busy family place. The Friday ad hoc
sketchers gathered there on a sub-freezing morning, where not even my extra-thick Freehand glovescould keep
me from freezing my hands off. Last year when I sketched the reindeer, they
were either dozing or snacking lazily. Today, Dasher and Blitzen were in
constant motion, so sketching them was more like an exercise in blind contour
drawing. Curley the camel was a different challenge – one of scale. Once I
sketched Curley’s head, his immense body wouldn’t fit on the rest of the page.

11/22/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink

I lasted about a half-hour before my fingers went numb.
Fortunately, Swanson’s delightful café is warm and surrounded by a jungle of
plants and even a koi pond. I let my hands thaw around my cup of cappuccino
before sketching the brightly colored fish.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

An errand on Capitol Hill gave me an opportunity for lunch
at Aoki, a small, traditional
Japanese restaurant that I don’t get to as often as I’d like. I know some
sketchers have a penchant for sketching their food before they eat it (Matthew Midgeley and Liz Steel are among my favorites), so I
actually had it in mind to try that – I really did. Japanese food is always so
beautifully presented that I knew my meal would make a nice still life without
having to do anything to it. But by the time my grilled mackerel, soup and rice
came, I was so hungry that I cancelled my sketching plans and scarfed it all down.
(Matthew and Liz obviously have more willpower than I do.) As penance, I
sketched the colorful sake bottles lined up on the counter instead.

11/21/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Canson XL

Stuffed and happy, I finished my errand and then swung by
the Seattle Asian Art Museum at
Volunteer Park. It was another sunny but very chilly day, and I managed to
score an ideal parking spot facing the museum. (If I were to turn the car around
180 degrees, I would see a view of theSpace Needle that I had sketched earlier this year.) Although I’ve sketched
at Volunteer Park several times, I’ve never been brave enough to take on the
museum’s lovely art deco building. With that parking spot, I had no excuse. I
started with a drawing that wasn’t half bad, but then I took out my paints and overdid
the growing shadows.

Frustrated with that sketch, I went inside to use the
restroom, but to be polite, I sketched a Tang Dynasty horse sculpture on my way
out. (I don’t want them to think I buy an annual museum membership only to use
their toilet.)

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Our outdoor digital thermometer read 39 degrees as I pulled
on my down jacket and headed for Green Lake on this beautifully sunny
afternoon. I knew it would be chilly, but we haven’t had sunshine for several
weeks now, and I’ve been craving a hit of vitamin D.

Painting my favorite stand of maples exhibiting particularly
uneven and peculiar tree pattern baldness, I lasted all of 22 minutes. My hands
were numb, even with fingerless gloves on. I retreated to my car parked nearby
to spend another 10 minutes finishing up. Then I hurried home for a cup of hot
tea.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A woman at the Wedgwood neighborhood Starbucks was deeply
engrossed in her book, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable because she
kept changing positions. Often she would hold the book up directly in front of
her face, obstructing my view. Frustrated at first, I became fascinated by the
many positions her hands took in holding the book and decided to make some
small studies of her hands (still one of the hardest parts of the human body
for me to draw – and often it’s a part that gets hidden during life drawing
sessions).

11/19/13 Velvet Black ink, Canson XL paper

Eventually she settled into one position long enough for me
to sketch her face. Just then, four teenage girls suddenly burst into
Starbucks, a flurry of giggles and fast chattering. They climbed into the two stuffed
chairs directly across from me (seated two per chair, endlessly amused by their
creative seating arrangement), and although they were quite close, I was invisible to them. Fortunately,
they did not block my sketch view. As engaged as I was in the sketch, I found
myself equally engaged in their mile-a-minute conversation. (I use the term “conversation”
loosely, since that implies that one person talks while the others listen.) In
fact, their chatter became the soundtrack of my sketch.

Monday, November 18, 2013

The weather prediction of 100 percent chance of rain today
became correct around 9 a.m. and has stayed correct all day, so it’s a good time for another still life in my alphabetical series – P Q R.

It’s also a good time to complete my review of Fabriano hot
press, the signature of which I finished with the sketch of the Columbia Center on Saturday. Of the five
140-pound watercolor papers I’ve tested during the past few months – Strathmore 400 cold press, Canson Montval cold press, Canson XL cold press, Arches hot
press (I couldn’t find loose sheets online) and Fabriano hot press – the Fabriano delivers the best overall combination
of a smooth ink-drawing surface and sufficient but not excessive sizing for the
way I paint. But when I compare it to Canson XL, my favorite of the cold-press
papers, I don’t experience enough significant difference in the quality to
justify the price, which is four times that of XL. So for now (at least until I
come across another paper I want to try!), my sketchbook paper of choice is Canson XL, which provides the paper qualities
I want for the best value. (Canson Montval runs a close second.)

And as long as I’m on the subject of cost. . . Although I’ve
considered paper prices as I’ve tried them, I haven’t been paying much
attention to the cost of my handbound sketchbooks compared to purchased
sketchbooks because saving money is not a primary motivator for handbinding my
books. But now that I’ve bound three books and I’m halfway to filling a fourth,
I thought it was a good time to at least run the numbers. Although many
less-expensive sketchbooks are available, Stillman & Birn Beta and Alpha
were my sketchbooks of choice before I began handbinding, so it makes sense for
me use them in my comparison. I preferred hardbound S & B books, but I
couldn’t find them online to get prices. However, their price per page is
comparable to the spiralbound versions. All prices are from Blick.com:

(My handbound book also requires thread, chipboard, collage
material, acrylic medium and acrylic paint, but per book, that cost is less
than a dollar, so I’ll consider it negligible.)

Unfortunately, there’s no S & B paper of weight
comparable to the 140-pound Canson XL, so I’m not really comparing apples and
apples. But for the sake of a blog argument, here are the results: An equivalent-sized (dimensions and page quantity) handbound book is about one-fourth the price of an S & B Alpha and one-eighth
the price of an S & B Beta.

(Whew! That was way more math than I’ve done in years. I
gotta go eat a piece of birthday cake to recover.)

Last time I focused on “portraits” of individual plants.
Today, with about 15 seconds to select a subject and less than 30 minutes to
sketch, I chose a larger view of the Miriam S. Buddress Cactus and Succulent
Collection, where I had marveled at all the otherworldly looking species. In my
rush, I forgot to note the name of this tall, palm-like succulent that looks
like it needs to shave its legs.

The first time I tried sketching in the mostly-dark was at a concert by City Cantabile Choir last holiday season.It was challenging, but the stage was well-lighted, so I
did OK with ambient light. To celebrate my birthday yesterday, my friend Linda
invited me to a concert by Kronos Quartet performing at the Neptune Theatre. This time, I wanted to be better
prepared for sketching in the dark, so I got a couple of book lights from
Amazon.com to try out.

11/16/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

One is the GT Max LED Clip-on Light, which is so cheaply made that. . . let’s just say that it’s
not worth discussing here. On the other hand, the Mighty Bright Ultra Thin Book Light, while not being of much higher
quality, at least has a serviceable clip that attaches firmly to the cover of
my “Stefano.” Very compact and lightweight, it can easily be carried in my bag
without adding any noticeable weight or bulk. Its mighty brightness is so much
so that I was afraid I’d annoy people sitting around me at the concert, so I applied
two layers of white tape to the LED bulb, which dimmed it down to the
appropriate level. Unfortunately, it casts such a narrow beam of light that I
could only clearly see the top third of the page. Still, it was better than
nothing, especially since my lighting issues were further exacerbated by the Kronos
Quartet apparently preferring to perform on a mostly dark stage. Not to mention
that the quartet members formed a semi-circle, and I could see only one member
clearly – and only his back.

Nonetheless, the concert was fantastic – eclectic, Avant-garde
music that defies categorization.

The Mighty Bright Ultra Thin Book Light was – less than
fantastic. I’m going to keep looking. If you have a book light you love that
would work while sketching in concert halls, I’m all ears.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Yesterday I began celebrating my birthweekend (why settle
for a day when you can have the whole weekend?) by sketching the 38-story Smith Tower from the top of the Columbia Center.
After Greg took me out for brunch this morning at the Dahlia Lounge, we were nearby the Smith Tower, so we went
up to the Chinese Room observation deck near its top (the very top is a private
residence). And guess what I sketched from there? The Columbia Center, of
course! (In literature, I think that’s called parallelism. I don’t know what it’s
called in art, but I like it.)

The Chinese Room
is called that because, according to legend, it was furnished by gifts from the
last Empress of China. The ornate décor includes bronze sculptures like this
lion I sketched.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Two years ago I began what would become something of a
personal tradition: Riding up to the Columbia Center’s 73rd floor Sky View Observatory on my birthday to
sketch. This year I invited a few sketcher friends to join me up there for a (day-before)
birthday party, urban sketching style: No booze, music or tiara – just our sketchbooks,
pens, paints and a nearly-360-degree view of Seattle. On a wet and windy Friday
morning, we practically had the place to ourselves.

The Smith Tower,
the only building I sketched the previous two years, was my first target. It’s
become my annual measuring stick of my architectural sketching chops. The last
two times, I was staggered by the vast, overwhelming view for quite a while
before I could put pen to paper. This time I simply walked up to the south side
windows and began. Mind you – the view was no less vast and overwhelming; I just
spent less time with my jaw on the floor before beginning. (See last year’s blog post to see sketches from 2012 and 2011.)

11/15/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Fabriano hot press

Then I moved over to the north side of the building to
sketch the Space Needle surrounded
by Belltown buildings and Queen Anne Hill. Most first-time visitors to Seattle
stand in line and pay 19 bucks to see the view from the Needle, but we all
agreed that the view from the Sky View Observatory is way better – and less
than half the price (if you’re at least 55, as I will be tomorrow, but the
ticket seller didn’t card me ;-)).

After lunching in the lobby, we all went back upstairs for
more sketching. This time I looked west toward the waterfront punctuated by the
Seattle Great Wheel to the north, a
ferry coming into the terminal and one of the Port of Seattle red cranes to the
south. (The top of the Smith Tower is also visible in the lower-left corner.) I
tried to pick out whatever tiny bits of color I could find on this otherwise very
gray day.

Last night’s Pinup Figure life drawing session at Artist & Craftsman had a steampunk
theme called “Corsets and Clockwork.” Our model Lisa was excellent, and the
ruffles and billowy fabric of her bloomers proved challenging. But my biggest
difficulty last night was her impossibly long legs! I used the classic head-count method to gauge proportions,
but I still don’t think I drew her legs long enough. In fact, I ran out of
space on my page several times.

If I count all of my sketches from the one-minute poses, I’d
be done with NaNoDrawMonow. But
where’s the fun in that? I’m counting only the sketches from four five-minute
poses and three 20-minute poses. Instead of different poses for the 20-minute
sessions, the group decided on a single pose (broken into 20-minute sessions),
so I decided to do three separate sketches using different media. (See the rest in my Flickr photostream.)

Technical notes: The five-minutes poses were done with an
Akashiya brush pen (no longer stocked by JetPens.com), which I’d completely
forgotten was in my life drawing pencil case until I was digging for something
else and found it there. It turned out to be ideal for loose yet expressive
five-minute sketches. I also tried using watercolor on my last 20-minute sketch
of the evening. When I’m focused on sketching people in the field (such as at Zoka Coffeeyesterday), I tend to reach for pen and
ink, both for simplicity and because I love the subtle shading I can get on
faces with water-soluble ink. But I’d like to start using watercolor more often
on people, so this life drawing session was a good opportunity to practice.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Rain, gloom, overcast skies: It’s Zoka Coffee weather–and the season for their pumpkin scones. It
was a good opportunity to give the Fabriano hot press a run with pen and ink:
my favorite Sailorsand
water-soluble Diamine inks. As I expected, the smooth, hot-press finish is a
dream under the nibs, and the inks wash beautifully on the surface.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Driving through the Greenwood neighborhood, I was looking
for an interesting church that I had seen on a previous visit, but I never made
it there: This little maple growing in a traffic circle stopped me in my
tracks. Every time I think all the trees have given up their color, I spot one
that insists there’s still plenty of time to shine.

Technical note: This is my first test of the 140-pound Fabriano hot-press paper I bought the other day. The sizing takes Platinum Carbon ink without incident, and
the paints sink into the surface at about the same rate as all the cold-press
papers I’m used to, so it behaved predictably based on my experience. I had to
rewet the paper a couple times in one spot and lifted color in another spot,
and all was well. So far, so good.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Whenever I go fitness walking around Green Lake, I always take
an ultra-compact sketching kit (you can see it on my Current Favorite Art Materials page toward the bottom) in case I
spot something interesting, but I don’t use it often. That means the pen – a Lamy
Vista filled with a standard Lamy ink cartridge – gets a bit dried and clogged
from lack of use.

This morning a heron was as close to shore as I’ve ever seen
it, leisurely scanning the water and just asking to be sketched. Cursing the whole
time, I eked out this one-minute sketch with the nearly dry Lamy. (Still, it
counts as a drawing for NaNoDrawMo,
so it wasn’t a total loss.) Lesson learned: I have to include that pen in my regular
rotation of fountain pens to keep it running smoothly.

I carry that little booklet in my bag daily, but it’s so
thin and light that I often forget I have it with me and reach for my Stefano (with
more desirable paper) instead. The Sketchbook Project sketchbook’s flimsy paper
takes a little more motivation to lay a pen and wash on, because I know I won’t
like the buckling that results. But the other day I realized I hadn’t used Private Reserve Velvet Blackink in a while, so I filled up a Lamy,
and the joy of using that ink somewhat overcame my dismay over the paper
(which, I admit, is nice and smooth under pen and ink – until I put the
waterbrush on it, and it wrinkles like toilet paper).

On my way home from using the Blick Art Supplies discount coupon that was burning a hole in my
purse (keep reading to find out what I bought), I drove around Capitol Hill
looking for a sketch. I ended up at Lake View Cemetery, where a number of
famous people are buried, including both Bruce Lee and his son Brandon. I’m not exactly a fan of the martial arts film star,
so I skipped his gravesite, which is what many visitors to the cemetery come to
see. Instead, I just drove slowly through the grounds looking for an
interesting tree to sketch.

Now I’ll tell you what I bought at Blick (and you might be
disappointed by this, too): a single sheet of hot-press Fabriano 140-pound
paper. I probably should have thought of something more expensive to get a 30
percent discount on, but five bucks is a bit of a gulp for a single sheet of
paper that I’m going to tear up to put in my sketchbook, so the coupon made it
easier to swallow. Stay tuned for that test.

Friday, November 8, 2013

I often spend bus commuting time surreptitiously sketching
fellow passengers. Today on my way to and from the Convention Center was no different, except I was particularly
motivated to do as many as possible to catch up on my NaNoDrawMo deficit for the week (I think I’m caught up now, so if I sketch one or two a day for the rest of the month, I’ll meet the goal).

Looking at the five very fast bus portraits (see the rest in
my Flickr photostream), I noticed
that in the one I did of a man looking at his phone (at right) I somehow
managed to capture his essence,
whatever that is. I’d venture to guess that his friends would recognize him in
this sketch, as the resemblance is better than most of my people sketches. But
resemblance is not what I mean when I say “essence.” The younger man that I sketched
listening to his iPod (below) is also a reasonably good resemblance, but I
don’t think I captured his essence. I wish I could quantify or articulate this concept
more clearly. It’s like pornography: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.